The Man Under the Radar

By Linda Nissen Samuels

This biography of Jack Maurice Nissenthall, written by his daughter, Linda Nissen Samuels, draws heavily on Jack’s own writings: The Wizard War, an unpublished autobiographical account of his part in the development of radar before and during WW2 and its impact on the eventual outcome, and original letters and photos. Through them, we hear this Unsung War Hero telling his own story in his own words.

At the heart of Jack’s story is the written order that he accepted, as the anonymous “RDF (Range and Direction Finding, an early term for radar) expert” - that he was to be “adequately protected” by bodyguards from the South Saskatchewan Regiment because “under no circumstances” was he to be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Effectively, this meant that ten Canadian soldiers specifically tasked to assist him, were also, in Jack’s own words, “a sort of negative safeguard”, “my execution squad”. That he was not captured and did indeed survive was due partly to his physical fitness and the “cheerful and resourceful courage that shows in this book.” (From the Foreword to Jack’s own manuscript- written by Prof R. V. Jones, Britain’s Assistant Director of Air Intelligence in World War II.)

This present book answers the question: what made him do it?

It also recounts many episodes which demonstrate how Jack’s whole life exemplifies dictionary definitions of a hero – as a person of high moral integrity, resourceful, passionate and patient, energetic, courageous, confident and caring who willingly takes risks and makes sacrifices for others. But Jack is not a common-or-garden, rough, tough hero. You’ll be charmed to read how, as a love-struck twenty-something, he wears his heart on his sleeve, writing to his girlfriend Dally about their first kiss.

Why is it then, that this exceptional person was undervalued and overlooked by the powers-that-be at the end of World War II? And why was he not decorated for bravery? Indeed, an article proposes that he is “The VC that never was.”

This book gives an insight into why, nearly eighty years later, Jack Nissenthall’s extraordinary war service is still largely unknown and unsung (except in Canada), and why there are still so many unanswered questions about it.

But in the end, readers will surely acknowledge this hero’s modest and cheerful embodiment of integrity - and want to sing his well-deserved praises.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Leasor
• Release date: Mar 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215207741

Book preview

Acknowledgements

The author and publisher would like to thank the following people and organisations for permission to use copyright material in this book.

The family of Reginald V Jones to use the foreword he wrote for Jack’s memoir written in 1963 and his letter to Jack.

Alan Godfrey Maps, for permission to use extracts from their Old Ordnance Survey Maps, sheet 51 Shoreditch 1914 and sheet 52 Bethnal Green & Bow 1894.

The Francis Frith Collection for permission to use the postcards

Nelson Publishing Canada, for permission to use the extract from creating Canada, a History 1914 to the Present, published originally by McGraw Hill.

Every attempt has been made to seek permission for copyright material used in this book. However, if we have inadvertently used copyright material without permission or acknowledgement we apologise and we will make the necessary corrections at the first opportunity.

In preparing this book, I am also grateful to the following people and organisations who have given me additional information and guided me.

Rachael Abbiss, Jennifer Bell, Ted Bell

Frank Bernard, Julius Bernard, Garry Bernard , Clive Bettington, Ian Bloom, Dennis Burton, Jess Conway ¹ , Savas Couvaras, Adam Farson, Ivor Glazer, Joseph Hill, Mandy King, Barbara Kinghorn, Stuart Leasor, Diane Levitin, Brian Parrot, Basil Samuels, Elizabeth Scott, Kate Thompson, Umi Sinha, Martin Sugarman, Doron Swade and David Zimmerman

AJEX -The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women

Battle of Britain Bunker Museum

Bawdsey Radar Museum

Jewish Museum

The Society of Authors

My sincere thanks to Scott Fraser for the photographs of the remains of the radar station at Rosehearty, 2022. He is Allan Leel's grandson, the great-great-grandson of Mr and Mrs Buchan, with whom Jack was billeted at 37 Pitsligo Street, Rosehearty 1940-1941.

Foreword 

Linda and I first met in 2021 during discussions about an upcoming exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary of Operation Jubilee (Dieppe Raid), which took place on 19 August 1942. The new displays would focus on personal stories from individuals that served in the air, on the ground and underground during the raid, and aimed to shed light on the lesser-known history of the operation. One of the most striking stories from Dieppe was the experiences of Jack Nissenthall, an RAF radar and electronics expert who carried out a top-secret mission gathering intelligence and disrupting German communications. His strength, stamina and skills were put to the test on that day and 80 years later, his daughter carefully reveals his story to highlight the significance of his work to the Allied war effort. 

The historiography for Operation Jubilee contains varied conclusions about the raid, with many historians considering it an ill-fated venture. This book reaches beyond the traditional arguments and the broad narrative, and takes a personal look at the career of a talented Jewish engineer who survived a crucial mission in 1942 furnishing the Allies with important information. 

Linda has devoted much time and patience in researching and writing this book and provides an honest account of her father’s life. Much of the work comes from stories shared by Jack and his recollections about serving in the RAF. Using material from Jack’s unpublished manuscript -  The Wizard War  - and letters he wrote to his wife, the book provides a fascinating insight into his life and experiences. 

Linda did not serve in the military, so perhaps writes from a fresh perspective analysing the life of a special forces operative and loving family man. During his career, Jack’s extraordinary actions went under the radar and now Linda is shining a light on her father’s accomplishments in a new and interesting format. 

Dr Rachael Abbiss

Principal Curator 

The Battle of Britain Bunker 

April 2022

Preface

My father Jack was an extraordinary man.

His wartime exploits, which were kept under wraps for over twenty-five years were excitingly revealed when I was thirteen years old.

It was only then I found out that in WW2 he was asked to go on a suicide raid to Dieppe to discover the secrets of German radar.

Up till then he had just been an extremely fit, lovable, funny and eccentric father to my brother and myself.

We knew he had been in the RAF and was a radar operator.

Little did I know that when he was twenty-two, he was asked to go on a mission, which meant almost certain death. He had agreed to have guns from a ten-man bodyguard from the Canadian South Saskatchewan Regiment trained on him. If he was wounded or risked capture, he would have been shot by his own side. He was also equipped with a green suicide pill.

I have used excerpts from my father’s unpublished manuscript The Wizard War . Together with some of the 200 letters he wrote to my mother from 1940 -1945; these form the main part of the book. These have been supplemented by present-day contributions from people who knew him.

All quoted passages are indented. My voice is not.

Having married the love of his life, Dally, he emigrated to South Africa where my brother and I were born. My parents were then invited to become citizens of Canada.

He had an exciting life, adapting to the different countries and working in cutting-edge technologies; three continents, three new technologies.

Two books have been written about his wartime experiences. Green Beach by James Leasor and Winning the Radar War by A W Cockerill.

This biography tells the whole story of his amazing life.

Foreword to my father’s manuscript The Wizard War

Reginald V Jones, Britain’s war time Assistant Director of Intelligence (Science).

The start of radio broadcasting in the nineteen twenties brought the electronic age into the ordinary home. The principles of constructing the simple receivers of those days were within the grasp of many who had received no instruction in science; and with a little effort any man could individually listen to the world with a receiver of his own making and - if he stretched to a transmitter – speak back. He could hold personal theories about the best way to make an aerial or a loudspeaker, sometimes out of profoundly domestic items and utensils, and he could usually find, in the curious phenomena of radio propagation, facts to support his theories, however, unorthodox these might be.

In this atmosphere, the radio amateur came into existence and the radio shop flourished. It was fortunate for us in Britain that they did; for they provided the reserve of radio amateurs and servicemen who so effectively kept our radar and signals equipment working in the Second World War. Afterwards, our chief opponent in the radio war, General Martini (Director General of Signals of the German Air Force) told me how much he envied us this reserve. Hitler had banned amateur radio in Germany before the war because it might offer scope for anti-Nazi activities; he deprived himself of a band of men skilled in the improvisations that were necessary to keep electronic equipment in operation in the war.

Surprisingly little has been written about the men who kept our radio and radar equipment working. Although among the most skilled of jobs, it might not have appeared among the most dangerous. But it quite often was, particularly when the equipment was airborne or shipborne; and it sometimes involved the hottest of action. Harold Jordan won an immediate D.S.O. listening in front of a German night fighter for its radio transmissions, Eric Ackerman a G.M. for ninety flights over the German radar defences, and William Cox an M.M. for his gallantry at Bruneval. Like Cox, the author of this book Jack Nissenthall, was a Flight Sergeant Radio Mechanic in the Royal Air Force who had volunteered for an operation of unusual danger. The operation turned out to be the Dieppe Raid. One of my vivid memories is that of Flight Sergeant Nissenthall reporting his experiences to me immediately after the raid – ending with a quarter mile swim under fire to reach one of the departing ships – and his high tribute to the Canadians manning their last Bren gun on a rampart built from bodies of their dead comrades.

This book is therefore the personal story of a man who willingly went into the ‘hard, savage clash’ of Dieppe spurred by patriotism and enthusiasm for electronics, and knowing that if things went wrong – which they did - he had a peculiarly slim chance of returning. That he did return was due to his great physical fitness, combined with the cheerful and resourceful courage that shows in this book. His own deeds speak for them themselves; but he has generously remembered mine ‘with advantages’- I only wish that I had such a tale as his to tell.

Prof. R.V. Jones

Department of Natural Philosophy

University of Aberdeen

7 April 1966

The Man Under the Radar



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Cottage Grove, Bow – an extract from 1894 Ordnance Survey. Number 24 is five houses in from Morgan Street on the right-hand side of the road.

Chapter One: Early years

I remember my paternal grandmother telling stories about my father, Jack, who was by all accounts an extraordinary child.

He was born 9 October 1919 at City of London Maternity Hospital, City Road, London. His parents Aaron and Annie Nissenthall married 11 September 1917 and shortly thereafter moved to Bow. The family lived in a big roomy house at 24 Cottage Grove, Bow, in the East End of London. It had a large garden, and is still there today, probably looking just as spruce as it ever was. Aaron’s brother Max’s wife’s family, the Geetleman’s were living across the road at 9 Cottage Grove. The houses are Regency in style and were constructed in 1823 to provide senior merchant seamen’s families with accommodation befitting their status. Cottage Grove was close to the London docks in pleasant leafy, open surroundings and has since been renamed Rhondda Grove.

Jack’s mother, my grandmother, said he never used the front door. When he came home from school, he would climb a tree and jump through his bedroom window. In Green Beach ² he gets in by shinning up a drainpipe, going hand over hand along the roof edge, and jumping through the window. Whatever his method, Granny Annie, as she was known, said she always knew when he was home, because of the loud thump that announced his arrival.



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24 Cottage Grove (now 24 Rhondda Grove) as it was; photograph taken in 2020. This is the house that Jack’s family lived in until 1926.

Jack first attended Malmesbury Road School. He obviously liked school, because when his younger brother Mickey was 18 months, Jack took him there, riding on the family dog. He thought it was time Mickey should start learning.

My father told me himself that he remembered the teachers saying Mickey was too young - he couldn’t even talk yet. Unfazed, Jack told them that he could understand what Mickey was saying, and that he would interpret. They weren’t convinced, and contacted his mother, who by this time was frantic, thinking Mickey had been kidnapped.

Apparently, Jack was also caught trying to set fire to the local park; I am not sure why. Probably it was some sort of experiment.

Jack’s father, Aaron, was a successful master tailor. Aaron’s older brother Max Nissenthall had brought Aaron out to England in 1909. Aaron trained as a tailor, specialising in ladies’ clothes and eventually had his own business. On 11 September 1917 he married Annie Smietanski (who was also of Polish stock, but born in England). They had four children, Marie, Jack, Mickey and much later Harold. Aaron sounds to have been a bit of a character. Married, with children, he decided to keep a goat in the back garden of their house in Cottage Grove. The neighbours were not impressed. The goat was always escaping and destroying their back gardens.

Across the road was a simcha suite or banqueting hall which hosted grand events such as weddings and dances. One day the goat escaped, crossed Cottage Grove and interrupted a wedding by butting its own reflection in the decorative mirrors. That was the end of the goat.

Aaron was very proud of his adopted home. He was ever conscious of the freedom offered by the people of Great Britain. He encouraged his children to be proud English citizens.



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Jack and his sister Marie. Photograph taken on the steps of 24 Cottage Grove.

After a few years in Bow the family fell on hard times.

The following newspaper article explains the catastrophic event which affected the family, and why Aaron and his family had to leave the lovely house in Cottage Grove, and move in with Annie’s parents and brother Michael at 15 Blythe Street, Bethnal Green - a small, cramped house with a front door at the back of the footpath and just a very small back yard.

Aberdeen Press and Journal - Thursday 8 October 1925

"MOTOR BANDITS' DARING. Burglars Pose as Flying Squad Men.

Motor bandits who posed as members of the Scotland Yard Flying Squad brought off a very daring raid in Merchant Street, Bow, London. Having forced open doors and ransacked rooms, they told a woman who protested that she was under arrest. They locked a man in a room, and then drove off with dresses and materials valued at £1000. Two rooms of the house are rented by Mr A. Nissenthall for storing dresses, materials, and fancy goods, and it was this store which had attracted the attention of the motor bandits. Mrs Bentall, who occupies the house, told a reporter that she had just dressed with the intention of going to Wembley, when I heard a knock at the door, at which I saw three men. They scarcely waited for me to answer, but forced their way into the house. After they had pushed me into a back room, one of them said—'Do not be alarmed. I am an inspector from Scotland Yard, and we are Flying Squad men. We are going to search for stolen property which we know is here, and we shall take it back to Scotland Yard!' He then began to cross-examine me like a detective out of an American crook play, until I felt like a criminal. Then he called to one of his men, and said— ' Get me a taxi-cab, sergeant. We shall have to take her to the station, and charge her with the others.' The inspector kept me in the kitchen while his assistants took the stuff from upstairs and loaded it into the lorry. While this was going on, a friend of Mr Nissenthall arrived. The sergeant seized him, and, pushing him into the room, locked the door. He afterwards broke the window, and climbed through into the street. So ended one the most daring raids that have taken place in London." [£1,000 in 1925 is equivalent to about £62,000 in 2020]

My grandfather Aaron never recovered from this. The burglary broke him. It is presumed he must have had a ‘nervous breakdown’. He took to gambling, and died of cancer in 1940.

Living now in Blythe Street, Jack and his two siblings, Marie and Mickey then attended Teesdale Street School. It was in the next street (easily accessible via a small road, Wear Street). At 15 Blythe Street at the time were Annie’s parents Hersch and Augusta Smietanski, and Annie’s brother Michael. At 39 Teesdale Street, lived the Bernards. Isaac and Mina were a Romanian/Yiddish speaking couple, who had 6 children; Victor, Max, Adelaide, (affectionately known as Dally) Maurice, Julius and Frankie. This house became Marie and Jack’s home from home. It was a warm, somewhat chaotic, traditional three-story East End Jewish house, with a tailor’s workroom on the top floor and accommodation for the five boys, one girl and their parents on the floors below.



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Extract from the Ordnance Survey map of 1914. Jack’s family lived at 15 Blythe Street and Dell’s family at 39 Teesdale Street, both houses close to Wear Street. Jack and Dell both attended Teesdale Street School until they were eleven and then Mansford Street School, which is opposite the Unitarian Church.

Sadly the houses Jack knew in his childhood are no longer standing. Deemed unfit for human habitation, many of the houses in both roads were demolished to make way for new Local Authority housing estates. The two roads, or at least what is left of them, are now part of The Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area which was designated in October 2008. The Winkley Estate, which forms the major part of the Old Bethnal Green Road Conservation Area, is a small area of distinctive late Victorian development which now stands surrounded by post war local authority housing development. The houses in it are of the same style as those that used to stand in Teesdale Street and Blythe Street.



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Jack in Wear Street, which linked Blythe Street and Teesdale Street in 1927.

There, when he was nine, Jack was introduced to electronics by his future double brother-in-law, Max, in a cupboard under the stairs. I say ‘double’, because Jack eventually married Max’s sister, Dally and Jack’s sister Marie married Max.

Jack, aged 9, started making crystal (radio) sets for the neighbours. He remembered how one not so generous neighbour gave him half an apple as payment; he was not impressed. Always very short of money as a consequence of the family’s precarious finances, but with a great thirst for knowledge, in the holidays he would walk from the East End to the Science Museum in Kensington. He told me that for lunch he would eat fish and chips out of newspaper in the tunnel leading to the Underground, and then return for an afternoon session, before walking home again.

From the age of twelve, Jack and his friend Max Bernard would cycle to Whitstable on one bike, each taking turns to sit on the handlebars while the other pedalled. (Jack had family in the area, Bertha and Dick, whom they visited frequently). Later on they went camping at Box Hill with the girls in the family, and other friends. They also went to the Isle of Wight. The boys cycled, and the girls would go by train.



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Jack with his father Aaron at Ramsgate

After he left Teesdale Street School in 1930, he went to Mansford Street Central School, which was essentially a technical college. There he was blessed to have an inspirational science teacher A.H. Raines, and it was he who probably set him on course for his future career, starting with a one-valve radio and then he went on to construct receivers under his guidance.

Jack was always looking for components for his ‘hobby’ and one day he cycled across London to the Columbia Gramophone Company shop in Petty France where he met a man called Alan Blumlein ³ .

Alan was obviously impressed by Jack’s enthusiasm, for, at Jack’s request, and despite a heavy work schedule of his own, he agreed to give a talk to the Chiswick Radio Club of which Jack was a member.

In 1931, The Columbia Gramophone Company was bought out and combined with other similar establishments to form EMI. A brand-new factory with laboratories was built at Hayes in West London and Alan Blumlein went to work there.

In 1935 aged sixteen, Jack started working at EMI. Perhaps it was Alan Blumlein who persuaded him to apply, for Jack found himself working with Alan on sound reproduction, radio and early television. Jack assembled television sets and visited people’s homes to install and maintain them. On 2 November 1936 the BBC Television, as it was then known, began broadcasting regularly from Alexandra Palace to the London area.

Of this happy time, my father wrote in The Wizard War manuscript:

In those sunny far-off days it was quite unthinkable that anybody in the world would have the audacity to attack the British Isles. The First